A Book Infested With Ghosts
by DeliriousMess
Summary: Jennifer, now working for Duke in the summer as a nanny, is asked to read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by his daughter. If that wasn't strange enough, there are notes scrawled in the margin of the book, documenting the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship that had no names attached to it. Duke, however, seems to have answers about it.


**A/N:** So on tumblr, I had an Anon who came up with this AU of Jennifer being a child librarian where Duke, a single parent, would frequently appear to flirt and get his bibliophile six year old her fix. In a similar vein, Compactor on here and on tumblr sent me a prompt a while ago that was just "A Book Infested With Ghosts." This then spawned from it.

"Read this one, Miss Jen!" Zoe requested, pulling a battered book from her little white bookcase across from her bed. Jennifer looked at it, adjusting her reading glasses (only thirty and she had reading glasses-she liked to blame her job at the library but that could only get her so far), even reached out and took the book in her hands from Zoe.

Since the start of the summer, Jennifer had started to work for Duke Crocker, Zoe's father, as a nanny. Duke worked long days at the restaurant he owned, and since Zoe was now out of school, he had to figure out some other way of someone watching out for Zoe until he could finally leave for the evening. Throw in the fact that he lived on a boat and couldn't—necessarily—drop her off at a neighbor's house, and he needed all the help he could get. He tried to be home in time for Zoe's nightly story, and always made sure that he could eat breakfast with her in the mornings. It had been a bit awkward when he had first proposed the idea, given Jennifer's hardly hidden crush on her employer and especially since she'd originally only been his daughter's librarian before this, but now that she was going back for her Masters and needed to be in summer school, she needed to find other forms of income. The library paid well enough, but not as well as she'd like. And, she had rationalized, she and the Crocker's hadn't had what could called a "normal" relationship to begin with-they'd already been in and slept in her apartment after looking after her dog, all that was left was being employed by him. And, she had continued to rationalize to herself, she could be professional, and keep her feelings in check. Even if he did sometimes give her confusing signals.

This had become part of her and Zoe's nightly routine when her father couldn't get away to be the one to read with her—after Zoe got ready for bed, Jennifer would sit on her light purple butterfly comforter on her little mattress and wait for her to chose and story for them to read together. The last couple of nights, Zoe would ghost her hand over a few of the titles-most of them on or a little bit above her reading level-and, Jennifer had noticed, would hover over the spine of this book. She hadn't had a chance to look at the title of the book too closely-she'd only seen that it was a pleasing green color. It was only tonight that it seemed that Zoe felt confident enough to finally it pull it from her little bookcase and bring it to Jennifer to read to her.

Jennifer turned the book over in her hands and flipped the pages absently, feeling a brief nostalgic pang in her heart for the library as the smell of old book surrounded her. It was a very well read copy of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; the spine was cracked in so many places it was hard to read the title on it, the pages were a aged brown, and in her fast flipping of the pages she could see handwriting in the margins of the pages. She had never had a chance to read the novel before-though it seemed to pass under her scanner a number of times at the library-but she knew enough about it that she knew it wasn't exactly standard reading for a six year old.

Jennifer arched an eyebrow as Zoe grabbed her little giraffe stuffed animal (named "Darwin" with a broken ear that she "saved" from a secondhand shop when she was four—it was a tale of heartbreak and heroism, and one she's heard many times since she was hired from both Zoe and Duke).

Zoe smiled up at her expectantly as she burrowed herself and Darwin further under her blankets and curled into Jennifer's side. Jennifer flipped open the book again and was struck by the fact that there were notes in the margins of just about every page—in two different, distinct handwritings. Jennifer assumed it must've been a book Zoe chose for herself from a thrift store and that Duke, being Duke, didn't say anything about it when she grabbed it and took it with her to the counter—he was probably just happy that the book looked thick and would therefore, feasibly, keep Zoe preoccupied for some time and prevent her from asking for another trip to a bookstore or another secondhand shop.

"You sure this is the one you want?" Jennifer asked her, still looking skeptically at the book in her hands.

Zoe nodded enthusiastically, nestling further into the covers, "Very sure."

Jennifer shrugged and opened it to the first page, that same nostalgic pang came back with the sound of the older pages crinkling. Just as she was about to read the first line, Zoe placed her hand over the pages and stopped her. Jennifer looked at her, surprised, as Zoe just smiled nervously at her, "Make sure to read the notes too, please."

Jennifer gave her a confused look but shrugged and nodded as she turned back to the book, finally reading, " _Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice._ "

Between the notes and the actual content of the novel itself, they only got as far as the start of the third chapter before Zoe was out like a light. Jennifer stood from the bed, tucked Zoe more completely into her little bed, and clicked off the little fairy lamp that only just barely lit up her room when it was on. The day-glo stars stuck to the ceiling faintly glowed in the new darkness, not allowing for much light, but giving just enough to comfort the six year old should she wake in a fright. Jennifer was always amazed at how much Duke had been able to do with the smaller space, especially with the customization and colors. She curled her toes absently into the white, shag rug in the middle of the floor and looked down at the book in her hand.

It was at this point in their little routine, that Jennifer would usually put the book back in it's spot on Zoe's bookcase so that when they went through this the next night, it would all be in place.

Waiting for them.

But not tonight.

The notes in the margins had enraptured Jennifer and she needed to read the rest of them. She tucked the book under her arm as she exited the room, making sure to keep the door cracked slightly, in case the single occupant woke in the night and needed something. She turned towards the couch in the stateroom of the boat, and arched an eyebrow to see Andraste, her blue Pitbull, lounging far too comfortably on the couch.

Given that Jennifer spent all of her days on the Rouge with Zoe to keep an eye on her while Duke worked, Jennifer had needed to bring Andy with her to keep her from tearing her apartment apart. Duke had been a little wary at first—not because he didn't trust Jennifer or her ability to train her dog, but because he was always initially wary of new things being brought onto his boat; especially if those things could be seen as a threat to his daughter. But Andy loved Zoe, and was literally the gentlest creature that Jennifer had ever encountered, so Duke had nothing to worry about.

That did not stop him, however, from barring her from the furniture.

A fact that Jennifer reminded her of in this moment, sternly commanding, "Andraste."

Andy lifted her head to look at her mother, tail thumping gently against the couch cushions. Jennifer arched an eyebrow at her, expectantly. Andy's tail stopped wagging, and, slowly, she climbed up on to her feet and ambled off the couch. She fell heavily, as if the move had eaten up the last reserves of her energy, onto the floor just in front of the couch, between it and the coffee table, and sighed exhaustedly once she was settled.

Jennifer smirked at her dog as she clamored onto the wrap around couch into the spot Andy vacated, even rubbing her feet against Andy's side on the floor, as she picked back up where she'd left off in the book. She couldn't tell much about the people who'd been exchanging notes in the book, aside that at least one of them was probably feminine in some regard, but she knew what she was reading.

She was reading their love story.

There were only two sets of handwriting in the book, but there were different colors of ink, different levels of wear on some of the notes compared to the others, some notes had notes while others didn't, only adding to the deciphering and guesswork that Jennifer had to do about the original owners of the novel. Whoever-all she had were single initials, "E" and "D"-had owned this book before, they had been in love, and it had started with this book.

As she kept reading, she also knew one other thing.

It had ended with this book as well.

As Jennifer read through the notes, trying to decipher which ones came first and which were the most recent, she saw the entire cycle of their relationship from start to finish. She saw the nervous flirting, the easy "Thought of you"s that came with the fully developed relationship along with various "Reminds me of that time when"s, and then the "I miss you"s and the one "Come back" of the down swing.

And it broke her heart in a way that didn't make sense to her.

"God, I'm so sorry I'm late," A voice was saying from the steps that led down from the deck above her, "It seemed like one thing after another went wrong today—I think I spent more time fixing cracks than I did anything else."

Duke rounded the corner, all smiles and even with a presumptuous bottle of wine in his hand, to see Jennifer sitting on the couch—not altogether unusual—and reading a book—also not altogether unusual—it was _what_ she was reading that stopped him in his tracks.

She looked up at him, marking her page with her finger, and smiled, "No big deal; she was wonderful, like always."

Duke kept staring at the book in her hands, even as Jennifer eyed the bottle of wine in his hands, "Whatcha got there?"

Duke gave her a briefly confused look before following her line of site to the bottle of wine. He allowed himself to smirk at her before conceding as he set the bottle on the table in the breakfast nook and shrugged out of his jacket to toss it on to the bench seats, "Well, it _was_ part of my original plan for tonight. But now I think what _you_ have is much _more...pressing."_

She looked back at the book, laughing lightly, "Yeah, _this_ was the book that Zoe wanted me to read to her tonight. I assumed she'd gotten it from a thrift store or something—it's full of writing."

Duke seemed to tense at Jennifer pointing that out, if the twitch of his jaw was any indication, but Jennifer wasn't sure what to make of that.

"Have you looked through it?" Jennifer asked, absently flipping the pages of it, "The notes are...it's like their own separate story! An _entire_ relationship, dancing around the edges of a larger context."

"You said Zoe wanted you to read it?" Duke asked, his voice sounding markedly tighter than it had been a minute ago. He finally walked the rest of the way towards her, rolling his sleeves as he went, and held his hand out to take the book from Jennifer.

Jennifer nodded, unnerved by his behavior, and handed the book to him.

He flipped through it and sighed, "I can't believe she found it again."

Jennifer felt as if a rule she hadn't known was rule had been broken. She shifted nervously on the couch, "Is something wrong?"

 _Did_ I _do something wrong?_ Was unsaid, but as much a part of the question as the question itself.

Duke sighed again and shook his head, tossing the book onto the coffee table, "No. Well. Not really."

Jennifer watched him expectantly as he sank into the couch across from her, rubbing his face with his hands. He stared at the book for a long moment, arms falling to his sides. He looked so exhausted in this moment-as if every trying thing that's ever happened to him finally caught up with him on this sofa.

Jennifer made to say something but Duke beat her to it, saying all in one breath, "Zoe doesn't remember much about her mother."

This fact both surprised and didn't surprise Jennifer. It didn't surprise her because Zoe never made any sort of comment about her mother, or lack thereof. Zoe seemed to know that most families had a mother and father, or some variation of that, and she also seemed to know that hers was not one of those families. This never seemed to both her, even when Jennifer was only seeing her once or twice a week for library related activities, and that continued to be true as Jennifer cared for her over the course of the summer. It surprised her, however, because of how abruptly Duke had stated it. Jennifer hadn't gleaned much about Zoe's mother from him in the short time she'd gotten to know him separately from his daughter, but she had the impression that it wasn't something he often talked about, or enjoyed talking about if and when he did.

Jennifer waited for him to continue. Andy snored under Jennifer's feet.

Duke let out a heavy sigh through his nose, "Evidence-or 'Evi' as she usually preferred-and I met when we were in college. I was the TA of her 'World Lit' class. One day, she left her copy of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ at her desk and I picked it up. I don't know what possessed me to flip through it, but I did and I started reading her little notes and insights. They weren't…I mean, they were interesting enough, but I—I wanted—hell I don't know _what_ I wanted, but what ended up happening was me writing responses to her notes."

Duke seemed to be staring through the book on the coffee table, lost in remembering this part of his life. It was as if she'd hypnotized him into talking about it and he couldn't stop until she snapped her fingers. Or as if the book were showing him all these memories, replaying them like old home movies that he'd forgotten he had. Jennifer felt immediately foolish at having not figured it out sooner-of course it was Duke's. Of course he was the "D" that had left the notes in the margins. Of course the "E" was Zoe's mother.

"The next class, I put the book on her desk, thinking that maybe she wouldn't notice that she'd been missing it or that she wouldn't notice the new notes there-I don't know why I thought that was even an option; of course she'd notice but it almost made sense at the time. Her whole face lit right up when she saw it on her desk but she didn't seem to think too much about it, especially since class started shortly after she got there. Towards the end of the class, when we had a few minutes to just hang out, she started flipping through her book again and—and I could tell that she noticed the new writing. Her…" his voice trailed off as a fond smile spread across his face, "her eyes just _sparkled_ when she saw the writing, and she got this…this dangerous smirk on her face just before she looked my way. I don't what it was about me that made her just _know_ that I was the one who wrote in her book but she _did._ And I was so…I don't know what all I was feeling at the time, but nervous was definitely part of it and it made me look away from her before she could catch me smiling. She did, of course. There wasn't anything I could do that she couldn't catch me in. I think that was part of why it was so easy to fall in love with her."

Jennifer shifted on the couch to face towards him, propping her elbow on the back of the couch to hold her head up as she watched him and tucking her legs under her. She moved as carefully as she could, afraid that any movement that was too sudden would cause him to withdraw back into himself, and stop him from telling her more.

"It became our form of flirting for the better part of the semester until she finally just asked me if I wanted to go out sometime. I think you can still see that note in there-somewhere in chapter five if I remember right. She never was the subtle sort. Anyway. We started dating, soon she was living here with me, just absolutely enamored by the _Cape Rouge_ , and before I knew it, we'd dropped out of college and were traveling everywhere—Evi never liked to be kept somewhere for very long. She used to joke that it was a miracle that we even met-college was the longest time she'd ever voluntarily spent in a place. Sometimes, I think the real miracle was that I was able to be with her as long as I was."

There were many things that Duke wanted to tell Jennifer about Evi. The problem was that there just didn't seem to be a comprehensible way to do that without it seeming like he was just listing a bunch of random things about her. And listing them wasn't appropriate either because she was all of those things at once in a beautiful, dangerous, storm of a woman that he had loved. He wanted to tell her about how Evi wanted to see all of the world all at once, about how Evi thought everything everywhere was marvelous and worth seeing. He wanted to tell her about how Evi made him a little nervous, a little afraid, and a whole lot of excited all at once for what she was going to do next because he never knew-he could guess, or pretend to know, but he was almost always wrong. He wanted to tell her about how often he saw Evi in Zoe and how that scared him sometimes—Evi was a wild thing that wouldn't and shouldn't be tamed, and that made him afraid for his daughter who didn't know the world yet or all the ways it could and would hurt her. He wanted to tell her about how often he saw Evi in Zoe and how that made him so happy sometimes—Evi was smart and wily, and exactly what the world needed in so many ways, and that made him so hopeful for his daughter who could and would do so much to the world she was in.

"As we travelled, we kept the book with us. Every once in awhile, since there was a lot of downtime in between destinations, she'd stretch out on the deck and reread it. Then she'd leave it out for me to find, and there would be new notes for me to respond to. Some nights, she'd read it to me, or I'd read it to her-but either way, we'd read our story with the story of the Buendías."

There was a ghost of a smile on his lips as he continued to stare through the book. Jennifer heard Zoe mumble in her sleep in the other room as he continued.

"We got married in Tibet on a whim. She woke me up one morning, with this wide, dangerous smile that she always got before she proposed an idea, and just said, "Let's get married today." And I laughed and said okay. We found a monastery that was willing to hold an impromptu ceremony that afternoon and that was it. No one we knew was there. No one we knew even knew that we were getting married. I gave her the ring after the ceremony because it was only then that I could buy one. It was a three-dollar piece of metal from an obvious tourist-trap-vendor who claimed that some monks in one of the other mountains had blessed it. She'd thought the story was amazing, and took it for truth. She asked for two so that we could both have the same blessing. We traveled for another year or so before we finally headed back here, to the states. I called it 'home,' but Evi never did. Evi never called anywhere 'home.'"

"Home" was somewhere that scared Evi, Duke knew. She'd told him that once when they were well into a gifted—or maybe it was stolen, those words were very similar in Evi's vocabulary and he never pressed her for the clarification—bottle of a liquor that he'd never be able to find again. She'd stretched out with her head in his lap and said around a swig from the bottle, "I don't like 'home.' I like _everywhere."_

Duke rubbed absently at his left ring finger, as if he were playing with the ghost of the ring that had been there years before. She had noticed that he often did that when he's thinking. She wondered if he knew he did that.

"We found out she was pregnant about a month after we got back. I was excited—I mean, a _baby;_ that's what people were supposed to do when they were in love, right? Evi had seemed happy enough at the time," he chuckled, "she certainly had no qualms with using it as an excuse for me to dote on her, but she'd use any excuse for that. I spent more nights running to the convenience store to get strange snacks for her late night cravings than I did actually sleeping. She called herself a mountain, a balloon, a duplex—she loved coming up with different things to compare herself to. And I would always just grin at her and kiss her belly and tell her that she was the most beautiful duplex or whatever that I'd ever seen. Then she'd push me away, smirking, and tell me that I was lying. It wasn't until a month before she was due that she finally started talking about a name with me. I liked the name "Zoe"—it was…it was _easy,_ it was unique _enough._ She wanted something special though—something that demanded people's attention and I mean with a name like "Evidence"—she liked "Arcadia." When Zoe was born, Evi was just so drugged and exhausted that she just told me to choose which one would be her first name. Evi didn't seem to really care either way."

Andy rolled over onto her back in her sleep under Jennifer, grunting and sighing heavily as she did.

"During that first year with Zoe, Evi was…present, but not completely. She cared for Zoe, she did, and I'm sure she cared about her too, but it seemed more out of obligation than anything else sometimes. We'd stopped traveling as much when Evi was pregnant, and then when Zoe was born, I had just assumed we'd stop traveling altogether-Evi and I both came _from...unstable_ backgrounds and we hadn't done _reputable_ things in our pasts, but I wanted to give our daughter the kind of life we didn't have; something _stable_ and _real._ Evi had agreed at the time, but I slowly started to notice how _antsy_ she was being. She did her best to hide it from me, but I knew what was happening, even if she wouldn't admit it. There was very little she could hide from me. One night, she finally asked me, "Don't you miss the world? We could go _anywhere."_ And I'd just looked at her and said, "My world is _here._ With you. And our daughter."'

He trailed off for a moment, then continued, "I guess that hadn't been the answer she'd wanted—about a month later, I woke up to an empty bed, a made breakfast, a screaming baby, and a note."

There was a long moment where nothing happened. They each breathed with minute variations, the boat rocked slightly on the water, the night pressed itself against the small windows above them—waiting with them for the rest of the story. He was lost in his memories of that morning; thinking that she was just in the kitchen, then thinking that she was with Zoe, then finally coming back with Zoe in his arms to register the note on the table, and then the frantic search for the book-if the book was still there, then she'd come back. But he couldn't find it and had to resign himself to the fact that the book, and its original owner were both just gone.

Duke shrugged absently, still not looking at Jennifer yet, "The world Evi wanted was bigger than Zoe and me."

Duke shifted and sighed on the couch, moving his body towards Jennifer without realizing that was what he was doing, "About a year later-around Zoe's second birthday-I got a large envelope with no return address, and just the book inside it. I wanted to throw it into the ocean, to set a fire somewhere and burn each page, to just _destroy_ it and us along with it. But I couldn't. I needed to know what, if anything, she had to say. That was where I saw the first "I miss you." At the end, using what was left of the blank pages in the binding, there was a letter from her-talking about what she was doing, where she'd gone, how she thought about us every day, that she missed and loved me. I read it once and took my petty revenge in tearing it out. That, at least, was subject to my initial desire. I let it burn on the deck. For awhile, I just left the book up in the navigation room, away from where Zoe usually was, and out of my everyday life. But then, maybe six months or so after, I read back through it, with her new notes and all I could do was write, "Come back" right at the end. Then I tried to hide it in plain sight on one of the higher shelves in the bookcases."

There was another long moment of silence, with only the sounds of living and the ocean trying, and failing, to fill the space between them. _He's always going to love her,_ Jennifer thought, and her stomach lurched slightly. She quelled it-this was his ex-wife, the mother of his daughter, of _course_ he was always going to love her-this isn't about her, after all.

Finally, as if apologizing, he admitted, "I hadn't meant to not tell Zoe about her mother—I hadn't meant to make her mother a mystery to her, but I guess somewhere in trying to raise her alone, that was exactly what happened. When she was about five she started asking questions, she started realizing that there was someone missing in our little bubble of a family, and she started finding some of the things that Evi had left behind that I hadn't—for one reason or another—thrown away."

Duke finally seemed to come back to himself enough to point to the book, "And that book seemed to capture the most of her attention."

Jennifer watched him as his eyes left the book to search out her gaze. He looked as if he was trying to find forgiveness from her, "When she first found it, I panicked and hid it from her, burying it as deep in the hull as I could and tried to pretend that it wasn't there and that she had never found it to begin with. She didn't say anything, and I thought she didn't notice, but when she'd go to pick a story for me to read to her from the bookshelf, her hand would always stop where the book had been—just for a moment—as if she were letting me know that she knew."

Duke shook his head, not at or in response to anything, but maybe to try to reprimand his past self or Zoe in some way,or to clear his mind enough to focus back on the present, "I don't know why she's so obsessed with it. It's just…it's just a book full of ghosts. Neither one of us is the same person that wrote those notes."

Jennifer spoke for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, her voice sounded foreign, even to her, "She wanted to know about the notes, I think. I think she just wanted to know your story."

Duke sighed and let his head fall to rest against the back of the couch as he stared at the ceiling, "I don't know if I'm ready to tell that story yet."

There was a brief pause before she carefully pointed out, "You told me."

It was barely above a whisper, and she was unsure of why she felt like she needed to say the words that way. There was something about the situation that demanded gentleness, and Jennifer was nothing if not gentle.

Duke looked at her and a small, genuine smile lit across his face, however briefly, "I guess I did."

They looked at each other for another long moment before that familiar flutter in Jennifer's stomach finally pushed her into movement. She always read it as a sign to move away from him, and never towards. Not yet anyway.

She climbed off the couch, prompting Andy to roll over and onto her feet, both of them stretching as they went, "Well. I should. I should get going. It's—," she looked at her watch, "—tomorrow already and I still need to sleep."

"You can stay in that extra room tonight if you want," Duke proffered, "since it's so late. It doesn't make sense for you to go all the way home just to come back in a few hours. And I think you've already left a few things here anyway."

Jennifer just nodded as a yawn escaped her, too tired to blush at the intimacy that she realized was implied in her leaving her own things here. Or in the fact that Duke had noticed. She covered her mouth and felt herself blush self-consciously at how big it had been.

She smiled sheepishly before glancing at the unopened bottle of wine on the table and decided that she could risk flirting with him now and blame it on being tired, "Sorry the bottle of wine plan didn't pan out."

He grinned at her, "Well if we keep meeting like this, maybe we'll get a second chance."

She blushed again, still smiling nervously, before she finally walked passed him with Andy in tow, only to be stopped by him carefully grabbing her hand. She stopped, looking down at him as his thumb absently rubbed her knuckles.

He stared just passed their joined hands, murmuring, "Thank you, Jennifer."

Her cheeks burned more, "Don't worry about it. I just, um, I just hope I help."

He smiled, finally looking up at her, "You do."


End file.
